From a “Content Management” whitepaper I just read, by the industry organization, AIIM:

• If the U.S. cut its office paper use by roughly 10 percent or 540,000 tons, greenhouse gas emissions would fall by 1.6 million tons — equivalent to taking 280,000 cars off the road for a year.

• There are over 4 trillion paper documents in the U.S., growing at a rate of 22% per year.

• For 56% of organizations, the volume of paper records is increasing.• The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year and wastes about 1,410 of these pages.

• With the average cost of each wasted page being about six cents, a company with 500 employees could be spending $42,000 per year on wasted prints.

There is a very compelling environmental case that can be made for reducing paper use through the digitization of key business processes. But a key element for organizations to consider is that the economic case for reducing paper use is just as compelling.

Among the benefits:

• Direct and immediate cost savings on paper and shipping.

• Increased process effectiveness and efficiency.

• The potential to fully integrate field staff and offices into the information capabilities of the organization rather than relying on daily overnight mail.

• Reduced real estate costs through the elimination of filing.

• Improved morale as an integrated information infrastructure allows for greater flexibility in working arrangements.

• Reduced off-site storage as the sheer volume of what needs to be physically preserved declines.

These guys kill me. I’m not talking about the weird song you hear on rocker-radio, “Somebody Told Me,” with the boyfriend/girlfriend lyrics. I’m not talking about “Mr. Brightside,” a boring weird song with a crummy creepy video. I’m not talking the better, positive, more fluid and brighter “Read My Mind.” I’m talking Track 3 on the new (well, latest) CD, Day and Age. “SPACEMAN. ” It rules. What the hell is it about? I mean, alien abduction and enlightenment? It starts with “It started” — cool, I already like it — “with a low light” — what is that? And the little Shakespeare reference (“I was hoping / that I could leave this “star-crossed” world behind”) is even in iambic pentameter, dude. And in such a positive, amazed sort of way, the guy in the narrative proceeds through life after his alteration. I can’t stop thinking about it, the way the lyrics keep changing and yet are sort of significant in different ways, like a villanelle, and if you look at them you realize the song is actually on some level about the creative process, the why and the how in life. Dude. It gets stuck in my mind and, as happens to the song’s protagonist, “it leaves a strange impression in my head.” And, wow, “they say the Nile used to run … from East to West.” Who did, the spaceman??

Wow, I must say (Edward E. Grimley aside) that Death Cab for Cutie is a great band. I have been walking around for weeks now with songs from Plans in my head — really all of them, and that’s a real testament to their yummy goodness.

I guess right now it’s “Can’t Find Nothin’ At All…” (perhaps not the song title, rrr), but often it’s the haunting (haunted?) “I Will Follow You into the Dark.” Or even the beginning, lyrically fascinating second track there: “In my head, there is a Greyyyyyhound station / Where I send my thoughts / To farrrr off destinayyyystons….”

Their Directions, the “companion” (so friendly) DVD with video by various independent directors for each of the songs on Plans, is excellent background, with a couple of standouts — worth the ride and/or to put a spin on songs we(I) already dig. Check it out.

I would direct your attention to this recent lecture by the so-appealing-nowadays “former next president of the United States,” as he runs around and around this crazy-important set of issues. So, did you actually see An Inconvenient Truth ?